Thursday, May 28, 2015

What has happened to Barbie’s feet? They are humungous. Everything else about her seems pretty
much the same, maybe a little more hippy and slightly less busty, but those differences
are barely perceptible. Her feet though?

Barbie's old school generation feet before the gender wage gap was considered an issue.

With all the feminist concern and speculation over the
years regarding Barbie’s possible negative influence on the burgeoning self-image
and cultural status of little girls, this is the result? Bigger, flatter feet?

Is this going to be a thing now? Girls will start
stuffing their shoes so their feet look a few sizes bigger than they actually
are and then flop around, tripping over their own flipper-like feet in a futile
attempt to be just like Barbie?

Social commenters and experts of various persuasions
will blame pop culture in general and Barbie in particular for an epidemic of
clumsiness seen in female preadolescents, as well as an alarming trend towards risky
calcaneal implants and phalangeal fillers amongst young women old enough to
give surgical consent.

People will reminisce with a sense of loss and
nostalgia over the good old days, when girls had normal sized feet and could
walk without twisting an ankle or doing a face plant in the pavement. There
will be an explosion in the number of ER visits related to fractured bones and
bloody noses. Barbie will thus be implicated in an overburdened health care
system, resulting in a public outcry that Mattel resize its Barbie molds yet
again.

Even more troubling, some investigative journalist will
uncover a new and up-until-then little spoken of foot fetish spreading throughout
the male population, whereby a significant number of men can no longer be
aroused by small to average footed females.

The word “paw” transforms into a crude misogynist slur and
eventually a grassroots movement is born to reclaim the “P word”.

There will be a surge in feminist outrage and a long
overdue rise in masculine shame, leading to a rash of 12-step groups popping up
near orthotic centres and shoe stores everywhere.

Podophillia becomes a crime and police put out an alert
to be on the lookout for online predators posing as podiatrists with an unusually
intrusive interest in toe jam and plantar warts.

More disturbing than that, foot rape also becomes a crime and females are warned against
enhancing the size of their feet, the implication being that if a girl makes
her foot too out-of-proportionally appealing then she’s “asking for it”.

There will be much debate regarding what constitutes
consent. If an abnormally lengthened second phalanx unintentionally extends
beyond the confines of an open-toed sandal and accidentally brushes against a
nearby male foot while commuting on a bus, for example, is that akin to
consent? There are, after all, A LOT of easily excitable nerves in a human
foot, especially when said foot has not been permanently numbed by botulism and
the unsteady hand of a second rate plastic surgeon with a drinking problem.

Is it reasonable then that a foot rapist overcome by
the overwhelming physical sensations of involuntary pedal spasms be held
criminally responsible? To what extent, if any, should a victim, conditioned by
societal foot norms and fashion trends, be blamed for the assaults on her augmented
feet?

These polarizing questions will elicit angry responses
from all sides with the less intellectually evolved factions arguing if a girl
is going to traipse about town with swollen, heaving feet ballooning out all
over the place then shemust be begging
for, and thus deserve, an assaultive foot massage from some random perpetrator covered
in facial hair and wielding a pair of menacing nail clippers.

In retaliation, loosely organized Paw Walks and flash
mobs will spontaneously sprout up in cities across the country with women baring
naked feet, fungus and all, and holding signs that read: “These Paws Were Made
for Walking and Walking is What they’ll do. These Paws are gonna Walk all over
You!”On the bright side, Barbie and her pretty little head always did have some pretty big shoes to fill. Maybe now she can actually fill them.

Saturday, May 16, 2015

I thought I was listening to CBC’s Rewind when I got in
my car, turned on the radio and heard this retro-trope:

"They can't get on any more skin tight, it looks
like sausage casings. Their belly button is pushing through the material and I
kinda look at that and I go, 'I get it, you're pregnant, all right.' Now why,
why, why such a desire to push that out in front of everyone?"

It wasn’t until later in the day that I came to
understand the above was not some archival soundbite dredged up from patriarchal
antiquity. It was one David Chesney, White Rock council member, currently expressing the
opinion of not only his fine pasty self, but that of others
who have made their revulsion of the pregnant form known via email and social
media regarding a meteorologist named Kristi Gordon, who had the audacity to
get herself pregnant and not go into hiding.

In reality, the only thing that should go into hiding is
not the visual evidence of human reproduction, but the ignorant opinions of
old, doughy-brained politicians and like-minded individuals regarding the
various states of the female body, opinions such as this:

"The fact is
that the styling was much different through the '50s, '60s, '70s — even in
the '80s women wore a little bit more loose-fitting clothes. But as I say,
nowadays, how they can yank on those Lululemon sweatpants and body dance
skins, and go out in public at eight months pregnant ... I don't find it
repulsive (obviously he’s lying) I
just really have to question, why that?"

“It’s a touchy point, but that’s just my opinion and by
golly I’m entitled to it”.

With the world’s population projected to reach 10 billion
by 2050 at a rate of something like two babies born every second, witnessing a
reasonably dressed pregnant woman out in public or on TV should be one of the
least shocking, most natural sights any citizen on the planet comes across.

If you’re going to question “why that?” then, you might
as well jump into the existential rabbit hole and question why the human race
exists to begin with? Why does it persist?
Why is there something instead of nothing? And the most perplexing question of
all: Why all the cognitive dissonance when it comes to the female human? It’s this
weird mix of fear, hatred, lust, obsession, revulsion and worship. When will it
stop because it is getting really, really
boring. We’re here, you’re here. Deal with it. Master your testosterone.

Master your testosterone, ESPECIALLY if you have a
problem with pregnant women. It seems counterintuitive and dumb otherwise.

And while you’re at it, show some respect for your
mothers, mothers-to-be and potential mothers (in other words, WOMEN), for god’s sake.

The David Chesneys of the world with their “by golly”
entitlement would not be here at all,sharing
oxygen and pompously spouting their confused, outdated opinions if not for a
mother, who through much mental anguish, physical discomfort and pain, first prepared
the way for them.

Don’t stand on the backs, hard work, sacrifice and
suffering of those who came before you, who made your quality of life – nay, your
very existence – possible, and
disregard, minimize or act contemptuous of what was done for you, that you could
never have done on your own, and that enables you to enjoy whatever freedoms
you exercise.

Honour your mothers, "repulsive" pregnancies and all.

And if you still want to question “why that?”, how about the
epidemic of unnatural, pregnant-looking, large-breasted men lumbering around like
Neanderthals, not in Lululemon sweatpants but in stained, saggy, grey
sweatpants that although loose-fitting, STILL leave nothing to the nightmares
of imagination. I have the misfortune of witnessing these sausages without
casings, these abominations of nature, every day, often getting out of vehicles with bumper-stickers
indicating their admiration for the yoga pant and child brides.

This double standard of objectifying the female form and
then abhorring it when it doesn’t fit into the sexualized ideal, while
simultaneously humoring, even celebrating
an overtly disgusting version of the male form has been eating me alive since I
was young enough to notice such gross injustices. It’s turned me into a pissed off human being, not because I was born bitter, but because the world has made me this way. No one likes to have a cabbage-roll stuffed down her
throat while she gags and told she likes it. Gag reflexes don’t lie, and oppression
will either kill the spirit or ignite it into a raging fire of revolt.

If society in general doesn’t want to deal with outraged feminine energy, then stop with the degradation. It’s not difficult. Just don’t
do it. There is nothing easier in this world than not doing something. For example, David Chesney could have easily not said this: “When you become a
public figure as Kristi Gordon chose to do, you are put to a higher standard”.

I won't mention pots and kettles because a womb evidencing
the miracle of life is hardly the hypocritical equivalent of a culturally
irrelevant politician from White Rock with probable karmic erectile dysfunction
regurgitating the same tired misogyny, but the only person in this equation displaying dismal conduct, poor judgment and stupidity is David Chesney. Kristi Gordon has conducted herself with nothing but grace and beauty. Pregnancy will do that to a girl.

She definitely deserves a professionally done
belly-cast for having to deal with this bullshit when she is pregnant. David
Chesney? Buck up buddy boy.